What's the best way to divide organizational groups up in Sharepoint?

Question

My organization is hoping to use Sharepoint for some simple document management.

We have multiple boards: Proerty Board, Membership Board, etc. Each one of these boards need a document repository. That's ALL they need right now. In the future, they might leverage some more of the awesome-ness that is Sharepoint, but right now we're just looking for simple document management.

1. Should I create a separate sub-site for each board, or should I just create multiple document libraries in the same root site.
2. If I do the latter -- create multiple libraries in the root site -- and later decide to give a board their own sub-site, can I move the library into the sub-site?

Answer 1

If you're looking at using it more in future, I'd recommend setting them up in separate sites. As a side-effect it also reduces the likelihood of documents being put in the wrong place (slightly).

As for list copying; it's possible using list templates for small lists (<10MB), but obviously this won't be an option for even a tiny document repository.

I've done it in the past using Gary LaPointe's stsadm extensions, but you need the right administrative access to do so.

Answer 2

When starting out with SharePoint, most organizations I've worked with have found that simpler is better. My recommendation is to start with multiple document libaries, if the boards need different permissions to the documents. If they all have the same access level to the documents, I would use metadata in one document library for navigating.

If you need to reorganize later, use the Open in Explorer option on the new and existing locations to move documents back and forth. Open in Explorer can be tricky sometimes, but there is good information available if you get stuck.